Masoumeh Ebtekar

Masoumeh Ebtekar (21 September 1960-) was Vice-President of Iran from 2 August 1997 to 3 August 2005, succeeding Hadi Manafi and preceding Fatemeh Javadi, and again from 10 September 2013, succeeding Javad Mohammadizadeh.

Biography
Niloufar Ebtekar was born in Tehran, Iran on 21 September 1960 to a middle-class family, and she lived with her family in the city of Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania for six years; she spoke English near-perfectly with an American accent. She enrolled in the Tehran International School after returning to Iran and began wearing Islamic clothing after becoming a follower of Ali Shariati, and she gained a bachelor's degree in science from Shahid Beheshti University. In 1979, she became the spokesperson for the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line during the Iran hostage crisis, and she translated the students' messages and represented them on television. In 1981, she became editor-in-chief of the English newspaper Kayhan International, later entering politics as a member of the liberal Islamic Iran Participation Front. From 1997 to 2005, she served as the first female Vice-President of Iran, and she was elected again in 2013 after serving as a Tehran councilwoman from 2007 to 2013.